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The Golden Notebook
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 27 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged Audiobook
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Classics
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Summary
One of the most important books of the growing feminist movement of the 1950s, The Golden Notebook was brought to the attention of a wider public by the Nobel Prize award to Doris Lessing in 2007.
Author Anna Wulf attempts to overcome writer’s block by writing a comprehensive "golden notebook" that draws together the preoccupations of her life, each of which is examined in a different notebook: sources of her creative inspiration in a black book, communism in a red book, the breakdown of her marriage in a yellow book, and day-to-day emotions and dreams in a blue book. Anna’s struggle to unify the various strands of her life – emotional, political, and professional – amasses into a fascinating encyclopaedia of female experience in the ‘50s.
In this authentic, taboo-breaking novel, Lessing brings the plight of women’s lives from obscurity behind closed doors into broad daylight. The Golden Notebook resonates with the concerns and experiences of a great many women and is a true modern classic, thoroughly deserving of its reputation as a feminist bible. A notoriously long and complex work, it is given a new life by this – its first unabridged recording.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
Critic reviews
What listeners say about The Golden Notebook
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
- ROBERT
- 24-12-12
Beautifully Perceptive
A wonderfully perceptive writer, Lessing captures the nuances of dialogue and emotion brilliantly. I at several points had to stop and think about the writer's ability to create such brilliant authenticity in fiction. The central character, Anna, is presented with such subtlety and complexity that her thoughts on sexual politics, relationships and frustrated desires become immediately gripping. The narration by Juliet Stevenson enlivens the prose of this book and gives the perfect voice to Anna.
18 people found this helpful
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- A. Brunton
- 30-03-16
Stricken, hard, difficult...
...with little pleasure for reader/listener. Worth the time but at times terribly claustrophobic and painful.
7 people found this helpful
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- Samera Owusu Tutu
- 07-04-13
Classic
This is a great book that captures a moment in time perfectly. Definitely worth the listen.
7 people found this helpful
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- jo
- 19-11-16
it's all very odd, isn't?
delightful at times, painful most of the time. well worth a listen, but I was glad when I finally heard audible's hope..
Juliet Stevenson helps with soldiering through it all.
5 people found this helpful
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- Alison
- 29-08-21
Confusing reactions to a very complex book
First, JS narrates this beautifully. Without that, I doubt I would have staggered over the finish line. There is a cast of thousands, some of whom appear to be two people, and without Juliet, I would have been even more lost.
Second, I spent quite a lot of the 27 hrs and 33 mins feeling that I must be too stupid to 'get' the complexities of this book that I know is a modern feminist classic, because the blurb and a lot of other stuff on line says it is. In fact, I resorted to looking at narratives on line at one point maybe about 5 hrs in, in order to read what I ought to be thinking or feeling. So I know that the author herself describes the central theme as fragmentation. This is applied to love, and relationships of all types; to society, politics; and to mental health. There may be more which I missed. Anyway, I recommend a quick Google if only to sort out the Note Books upon which the novel is based - each of which deals with a different narrative, style, period and purpose.
Then at times, I felt I was 'getting' the point. Frankly these moments were mainly in the Black Book sections. These are more story-based - easier to access, I suppose. And even in the opaque parts (for me, about 60% of the time), I was often just enjoying the writing.
However, I grew to detest Anna, which made the journey through the last 25% of the book even harder. I was so sick of her internal whining, I was heartily glad she gave up writing and just lived off the royalties of her one piece of work, ever.
I enjoyed the jibes at organised politics - here, the British Communist Party, mainly. It is peopled mostly by rich and/or privileged Comrades who do almost nothing except drink, lay about, have sex with one another and mock other, working class people. I enjoyed what I hope was a very extended dig at self-absorbed pseudo-intellectuals such as Anna and their vapid circles. I really do hope we were supposed to laugh out loud at much of her endless navel-gazing. If not, I really did miss the target.
But even for a book written in the early 1960s, it is very difficult to reconcile it with feminism, because it is based solely on the premise that women need men, and especially to have sex with them, in order to be 'real women'. I can see the descriptions of sex and bodily functions - tame for 2021 - might have been ground breaking in 1962, however, so I think I will focus on that aspect of the treatment of women.
I didn't hate (all of) it. I enjoyed some of it. But I did get very bored by c hour 18 and breathed a sigh of relief when it ended.
4 people found this helpful
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- J Z A
- 24-08-16
Very very long
Well this is a book about navel gazing. Not my thing. But beautifully written and performed.
The level of introspection was profound to a point of mental health concerns and beyond.
3 people found this helpful
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- vix
- 22-04-19
Grim and miserable
Not easy to swallow in the 21st century. The reliance on men and eagerness to please them left me feeling outraged and irritable. The political posturing too was rather dreary. I got through the whole thing thanks, in part, to the voice of the narrator. Believing this also to be somehow worthy I pressed on with the thing but really didn’t enjoy it at all.
2 people found this helpful
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- Petal
- 13-04-16
Tedious!
The book takes too long to get anywhere. I tried to put up til Chapter 28 and then decided life was to short to force myself to read it. I saw the great reviews on Audible and really wanted to love it because some of the reviews said it touched on feminist issues. Alas, in the end I just couldn't bear it any longer.
5 people found this helpful
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- MRS SUZANNAH JONES
- 14-05-22
An examination of the sexual politics of her time.
A refreshingly candid examination of the mismatch of the sexes. Brutal at times, longing, searching and often bleak. Brilliantly observed and deafeningly hopeless. I'm left wondering if things have changed or whether they are just better masked.
1 person found this helpful
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- Lee J Healy
- 26-01-20
Wonderful performance of a classic novel
Juliet Stevenson’s performance is perfect and brings Doris Lessing’s words to life in a way that is fresh and vital and absolutely relevant to today.
1 person found this helpful
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- @vmarinelli
- 03-07-12
Transcendent narration of a masterpiece.
Juliet Stevenson's narration of this classic (which I'd not read since college) is so extraordinary, I have found myself listening to this recording repeatedly, replaying favorite passages, etc. In narrating various characters' dialogue, she maintains consistency of voice and pitch, so the listener (even if somewhat distracted by chores or what have you) is generally able to keep all these lines of narrative straight - no small feat, considering the book's complexity.
I will not only return to this recording again, but I will also seek out additional recordings by the same narrator.
Finally, I will add that the recording is quite well-produced; glitches are nearly non-existent, which seems fantastic given the length of this work.
49 people found this helpful
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- Thomas More
- 16-08-16
Even Months Later, I Keep Thinking About It...
It took some time for me to make my way through this incredible book. It's the sort of work, deeply intelligent in its design and execution, that deserves a lot of thought and percolation. It was months ago that I finished it, yet even now when I think of the story told here, flawlessly delivered by Juliet Stevenson, I remember the excitement of knowing I was wrapped up in truly great storytelling. I had to acquire more Stevenson after falling in love with her voice and the skill of her execution, and went on to her readings of Woolf (also great). I will definitely come back to this again in the future when I once again have the time to savor it.
21 people found this helpful
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- Melinda
- 09-10-10
Really difficult.
Juliet Stevenson is my current favorite reader, and I thought I liked Doris Lessing. This novel is no less difficult now that it was when I first read it 35 years ago. Historical, interesting and terribly close scrutiny of human relationships. And Stevenson never disappoints, but Lessings work is trying.
38 people found this helpful
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- Glorianne
- 29-05-12
Groundbreaking novel turns stereotypes upside down
When I first read Erica Jong's Fear of Flying, I was surprised with the ground it was breaking as far as the role of women and their sexuality, the "taking back" as it were, of the sexual landscape. When I read the Golden Notebook, I realized the ground had been broken a decade before.
The novel takes place somewhere around the 1950s and earlier in England. Anna Wulf, a writer, has decided to shun convention. Although she has been married, she is now divorced, and she sleeps with men somewhat carelessly, a contradiction to the Donna Reed stereotypes of the time. She speaks graphically about sex and orgasms and a woman's supposed "place" in society. She is alternately seduced and disillusioned by the Communist party and, perhaps because this novel takes place in England (and was published there), she confronts these subjects bluntly.
There are a lot of frame narratives in the book -- four journals Anna has written in tell her stories, as well as the outside frame of Anna herself. This can get confusing, and while this style is also groundbreaking and in line with postmodern traditions, it can be laborious at times. Still, there are some meaningful moments and if you are willing to be patient, this book will reward you.
26 people found this helpful
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- HELEN G
- 20-02-16
This is one if the 4 books I would take to a desert island.
The others are Sinister Street, The Waves, Philip Larkin Collected Poems, The House in Paris.
16 people found this helpful
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- Katie G
- 10-01-19
Stevenson is Unmatched
I listened to Juliet Stevenson’s reading with a copy of the book in hand. Stevenson is truly amazing. (And, btw, Lessing also deserves all the accolades she has received.) She usually demonstrates a profound understanding of the books she performs, but with this book she’s outdone even herself. Her voices for Anna/Ella, Tom, and Molly, for example, do so much more than Lessing’s words alone do to the reader’s mind—and the voices that Lessing assigned these characters are very powerful to begin with. Through Stevenson, Lessing’s characters teach, disturb, and challenge exactly the way they were designed to, only more intensely.
7 people found this helpful
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- Sue C
- 09-03-14
Unexpected treat
I downloaded this simply because Lessing died recently and I felt guilty that I had never read her. The narrator was also an incentive.
To my surprise, although I loved the book , found the heroine to be completely believable and found it confusing, (had to go back and re-listen) it was the structure of the book as well as the writing that I found completely compelling and absorbing. This book was dismissed in the past as a 1960's feminist tract. It's so much more than a book about a woman in the 60's. Juliet Stevenson is a superb reader: there are accents and dialects involved and she nails every one. I think this book is a keeper and I will listen again.
12 people found this helpful
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- J. Kahn
- 06-10-16
Failed Experiment
One has to admire a writer with the courage to break with convention in both form and content. Lessing takes on the subject of women's sexuality, creativity and Communism in the 1050s. But sometimes one can bite off more originality than one can chew.
Anna Wulf is a disaffected Communist novelist who has written one well received book but suffers writer's block, unable to manage a second one. She experiments with various scenarios, each one drafted in a different colored notebook. They are all variations on the same set of themes and,characters in alternate plot lines. Lessing quotes from each notebook in "random" order so that it is difficult to know who is who, and even who is the real Anna or one of her fictional avatars.
The concept, while original for the 1960s, is far too long and padded with chapter after chapter of not very productive, repetitive introspective rambling. And this by a protagonist whose 600 pages of self absorption teaches her nothing. She indulges in attempt after attempt to liberate herself from sexual and political convention, only to revert to the woman who can't live without a man.
Hailed as a feminist, Lessing focuses on just about the most unliberated woman imaginable.
Particularly annoying is the constant refusal to allow the dialogue to speak for itself. Literally hundreds of times she modifies "he/she said" with an adverb or adverbial phrase, her favorites being "ironically," "laughing," and "smiling." It's enough to drive one mad, especially since one has to listen to each one.
Finally, I chose this book because I love Juliet Stevenson's narration and I felt I should read this celebrated work. But even Stevenson couldn't bring it to life, often sounding as bored with the thing as I was.
16 people found this helpful
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- Samuel Murray
- 19-04-14
The Best
First, Juliet Stevenson is to my mind the best narrator. Period. I would want her to read any book I might write--even it was about boxing.
I think The Golden Notebook is, by general agreement, the best and most original "feminist novel." It's the one book every feminist writer of any sort looks to for advice. What's amazing to me on rereading is how completely pertinent and alive it is--and how very moving, exciting, and overwhelming. Each of her characters gets up and walks around the room in front of you. They are all now part of my life.
The structure of The Golden Notebook--a form that has been followed (imitated?) in thousands of novels, movies and TV shows for the last fifty years--still works best here in the original as a portrayal of the idea of a woman's fragmented life. THIS IS THE ORIGINAL! Even David Foster Wallace should have acknowledged Lessing in his books, along with Gaddis and every other post-modern stylist.
The Golden Notebook also offers brilliant glimpses into a history that has been obscured by passing events. Where else can you understand the circumstances in which becoming a Communist would be reasonable and right, then feel how shattering disillusionment would be because it was all so obviously wrong? Papa Joe Stalin? Ridiculous! But that's how we won the war. And where would Lessing's Zimbabwe be without the true believers who fought so hard to emerge from the shell of Rhodesia?
The 2007 Nobel Prize citation said Lessing recorded the female experience "with scepticism, fire and visionary power" and "subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny," but this book sings a much greater song: a woman growing stronger and more beautiful by searching for an independent self on whom everyone depends.
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- Jeff Lacy
- 03-09-18
Fives across
Juliet Stevenson’s performance is the best Audible performance I have heard—and I use Audible for all my readings. This includes Ms Stevenson’s other performances I have used. This novel is a masterpiece of literature. It is a anthem, a philosophical declaration of feminism. It is an intellectual novel, courageously, gorgeously written. Reading it, one is struck quickly that this is a novel that belongs in that upper echelon of literature. I have only highlighted blocks of text in two works of fiction: The Sound and the Fury, and now, The Golden Notebook. This has to be on one’s list of all time books to read.
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